THREE HUNDRED HAIL MARYS

"Daddy!" Sam cried out from a tree branch high above.
"You're lucky that boar treed you. Next time he's liable to tear you apart. What'd I tell you about coming out here by yourself?" Clark scolded his son. 

The store was a mile away from their home if you went by the paved road and then by the dirt road. Clark's children were apt to take the short cut through the pecan grove. When Clark was a child is was safe enough. Times had changed and for many reasons it wasn't a good idea to get caught in that grove after the sun set.

"Hey daddy! Did you bring the Crisco?" Betsy brushed her bangs aside with the back of her hand and accidentally dusted her eyebrows with flour.

"No. I was too busy pulling your brother out of the mouth of death. When I found him he was screaming up a storm but he didn't say a word about Crisco. Where's Aunt Beverly?" Clark frowned at the sight of his 14 year old daughter baking pecan pies all by herself. She never complained. She learned everything she could from Clark's mom before Kate passed. She still consulted Kate's handwritten cookbook.

The family business was located at the intersection of the main highway and the road to the lake resort.  It started as a a fruit stand featuring fresh strawberries and pecans. It grew over the years. When they added the gas pumps and cleared out half an acre of the grove, they gained the business of the truckers. Word of mouth about Kate's pecan pies and candies spread like wildfire. They were always playing catch up, especially after Kate's passing and Gloria running off the way she did.

It was an all Catholic rural community. No one's wife had ever run off like that. Gloria was Catholic but she was an outsider. Clark had been sweet on Teresa at the time but Gloria shamelessly broke up that romance. Sheriff Weeks called Clark an idiot and spent so much time comforting Teresa that they eventually got married.

"If you marry me, you can can have all the free ice cream you want," Clark kidded Gloria the day he met her for the first time. She had been overly impressed when he did not charge her for the butter-pecan cone. 

Gloria and her friends had rented a cabin at the lake that summer. She came back the next day to try the peach ice cream. She wore a tight white sundress with strawberries printed on it. Clark had never seen anything like her.

"I'll marry you if you promise to buy me a washing machine," Gloria flirted.

The next time Gloria came to the store, there was a brand new washing machine, still in the box, with a big red bow on top, sitting right in the middle of the store. They got married without a courtship. Everyone predicted the worst but no one except Sheriff Weeks said, "I told you so."

"I'll get your Crisco now," Clark walked towards the kitchen door carrying his rifle.

"Since when does it take a rifle to get Crisco?" Betsy exclaimed.

"Since Charlie tried to eat your brother. We are having an unusually large wild boar this Thanksgiving," Clark replied.

"You named that hog! You can't shoot something that has a name!" his daughter protested.

By and by Betsy and Sam heard the rifle shot.

"Shit!" Sam shouted.

"Oh now you have to go to confession or you won't be able to take communion tomorrow!" Betsy sighed.

Clark came back without the bacon. Betsy was waiting by the door with eight boxes of pies.

"Where's the pig?" Sam cried.

"He got away but I got his ear. He's missing an ear. He'll probably think twice before he comes around here anymore." Clark lied.

"Sam has to go to confession with you tonight!" Betsy tattled.

"Where are you going?" Clark noticed Betsy wasn't dressed for church.

"You have to drop me off at the store so Evelyn Butler can pick up these pies. She's beside herself. Don't you remember? She has family from up north coming for Thanksgiving tomorrow. First they were coming, then they weren't and now they are again," Betsy reminded her father.

As they were unloading the pies at the store, Sam spied a lanky man loitering near the gravel parking lot.

"Who's that?" Sam asked his dad.

"He's not a good man. You stay clear of him," Clark told his son. The man had been around earlier that day and had the nerve to ask Clark about the help wanted sign in the window. Clark told him the position was filled. He found himself telling more lies than usual this holiday season. 

Clark told Betsy not to unlock the door for anyone except Mrs. Butler. He was going to give the drifter a ride towards town and return from confession before long.

"Why are we going to give him a ride if he is a bad man?" Sam was confused.

"We're just making sure he don't bother your sister while we're at church, that's all. Don't say nothing to him. Even if he asks you a question. Just act shy and don't say nothing." Clark advised his boy.

"That girl of yours is a beauty. I bet you could triple your income just by having her standing around wearing cut offs," the drifter seemed to want to offend Clark.

Clark didn't respond. When they arrived at the church he told the drifter that town was just six miles ahead and he was bound to catch a ride because the street light was brighter here.

Clark grew uneasy. Sam went to confession first and seemed to be taking forever.

"My son, the sins you are confessing are not yours to confess. You're only allowed to confess your own sins," Father Andrews tried to make Sam understand how it worked but Sam insisted on telling Father Andrews everything that had happened at school that week. Father Andrews told Sam to say two Our Fathers and two Hail Marys for being such a tattle tale.

When it was time for Clark to confess, Father Andrews was at his wit's end. Clark was wearing him out even more than Sam was. Clark was well on his way to becoming a pathological liar. It seemed he was getting worse.

"And I lied to my children about not killing the boar.  I killed the boar. I drove it down to the swamp and left it for the gators so no one would know I killed it. I lied about the job being filled. I did a good deed for a selfish reason. I gave a stranger a ride because I didn't want him around...." Clark confessed.

"So you're telling me that it's come to the point that now you also lie on the way to confession. It sounds to me like you're busy working your way up to telling lies during confession. I want you to say 300 Our Fathers and 300 Hail Marys. I want to see you again Saturday. We're going to do something about this situation, Clark."

Mrs. Evelyn Butler picked up her pies. Several hours passed. Betsy began to worry.  It never took her father this long. Every time a car drove by, she ducked behind the counter so no one would know she was there. She didn't dare turn on the lights. Finally it was more than she could take.  She left a note on the counter for her father and sneaked out the back door.  Her dad had just made them swear they would never cut across the pecan grove anymore, but she was too frightened to take the long way home and pretty sure the boar wasn't going to chance having his other ear shot off. When she was half the way home, she heard the crunch of dry leaves and twigs. She was shocked to find herself hoping it was the boar.

"You shouldn't be out here by yourself," a surly voice in the darkness taunted.

Betsy ran as fast as she could. All she wanted was to be safe at home again.

"Why are you running, baby girl? Your mama never ran. We had some good times out here, your mama and me. Why you playing hard to get?" the man her dad had driven towards town had circled back to the store and followed her into the grove. He was gaining on her. She tripped and landed on her stomach so hard that it knocked the wind out of her. Then she heard the sound of her father's rifle followed by silence.

"You didn't see anybody. That wild boar was chasing you just like he chased your brother. This time I didn't miss." Clark sent her home to call the sheriff and stay with Sam.  Sheriff Weeks found them and searched the dead man's wallet.

"His name is Charlie," Sheriff Weeks said. 

A DELICATE MATTER

"I know it's Halloween," Charlotte was exasperated. She'd reckoned that once the twins were in school she would have some peace and quiet. She reckoned wrong.

"Everyone is gone for the day. They're at the carnival. Why aren't you at the carnival?"

"We would be but your Mr. Edison has detained us. He is in our parlor lecturing the twins as we speak," Charlotte complained.

"I don't know Mr. Edison. He must be new. I'm just a student assistant. I'm here picking up the carnival game tickets that Principal Cameron forgot."

"I don't know what my children have done in school today but I have a delicate matter that I need to discuss with Mr. Cameron immediately. It can't wait." Charlotte insisted.

The student was breathless when he finally found Mr.Cameron and the chief of police throwing darts at balloons at one of the carnival booths.

"The widow Charlotte Hansen is beside herself because the guidance counselor Mr. Edison has gouged deep scratches in her maple kitchen chair with his artificial leg. He's in the parlor now with the twins no doubt rippin' up the upholstery beyond repair. Mrs. Hansen said she don't know how to speak to Mr. Edison about his leg because it is a delicate matter and she wants you to do it".

Before Principal Cameron could finish explaining to the student that there was no Mr. Edison employed by the school in any capacity, the police chief vanished. The Halloween carnival had been his idea. The killer with the artificial leg who tended to strike in towns where the residents engaged in unorganized, traditional trick or treating had obviously adapted and found a way to isolate his next victims.

MARCELA

(MARCELA is loosely based on characters in DON QUIXOTE by Cervantes.)


Marcela studied the statue. The saint was carrying the Christ Child but it was wrong. Then she noticed the prayer to Saint Anthony on the plaque and nearly fainted. Her cane tapped loudly and echoed as she rushed out of the cathedral.

"It's my fault," she cried.

She found the statue of Saint Christopher in the grotto by the koi pond. An elderly gentleman was sitting on the bench.

"Ambrosio?"

He patted the bench.

"You're not angry?"

"It's beauty's privilege to keep a man waiting," Ambrosio smiled at his wife.

The dementia occasionally convinced her that they had not eloped in their youth and that it was all her fault because she had waited for him in front of the wrong statue on the most exciting night of her life.

PASAMONTE

(PASAMONTE is loosely based on characters in DON QUIXOTE by Cervantes.)


"Pass this to the lovely lady!" Professor Pasamonte jogged beside the street car.

Renaldo gave the note to the woman Pasamonte indicated. She laughed so hard that Renaldo could
not resist asking the beautiful stranger what was so funny.

"Imagine telling your children this is how you met!" Renaldo and Leda fell in love laughing.


They kept it as a memento of their courtship. Eighty years later their heirs learned it was priceless.


Billy Toboso always claimed he hid it in a stack of invitations. Toboso was the greatest artist of his time in spite of being expelled for the sketch.  On the back of the sketch of Pasamonte burning in hell, Pasamonte had written: "Meet me here at 8".


"The professor must have believed he wrote this on an opera flyer," the appraiser laughed.